Free Republic

With the news that Attorney General Eric Holder is resigning — planning to step down as soon as President Obama names a successor and moves him through Senate approval — the inevitable speculation begins. Who will be Obama’s pick to fill Holder’s very big shoes — and to provide the kind of political cover and policy support Obama and company will expect and demand? One person who has been frequently been suggested is Deval Patrick, currently the Governor of Massachusetts. Patrick, who – like Holder – is African-American, is retiring from the governorship after eight years in the job. But...

We've got to stop people from Massachusetts running for president. Because every time they do, they lose. It is getting embarrassing, and it is giving the state a bad name -- like loser capital of the world. What is it with this place? How is it that our professional sports teams (except today's Boston Celtics) win while all our professional politicians lose? The list of Massachusetts failed presidential candidates is long, and getting longer. It includes Massachusetts governors, former governors, U.S. senators, former U.S. senators, and everybody else in the Bay State who now thinks -- with good reason --...

If two-term Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick wants to be a candidate for president in 2016, he’s faced with one problematic detail: We’ve already had a black president. Patrick, who’s the Bay State’s first African-American chief executive, is openly chewing on a bid for the White House, answering “maybe” in a recent Politico interview when asked about a possible run. “That’s a decision I have to make along with my wife of 30 years, and she’s a tough one to convince,” he said. “Let’s just see what time tells.” The problem, though, isn’t so much convincing his wife—who’s probably attracted now,...

More than 40,000 defendants may be affected by the alleged drug tampering of “rogue” chemist Annie Dookhan, a sign the state’s massive drug lab scandal grew beyond initial estimates, according to the near year-long work of the lawyer tasked with determining the scope of the state-shaking saga... Meier found that the actual list of defendants affected grew to 40,323. Of those, 10,000 were in prison, or parole or probation and had been previously convicted of a drug offense in Superior Court. More than 300 state prison inmates have been released, and prosecutors have opted to dismiss or drop more than...

More than 300 convicted inmates have been released from Massachusetts state prisons in the US as a result of the September 2012 arrest and subsequent indictment of Annie Dookhan, who worked in a Department of Public Health state laboratory and allegedly falsified evidence used in criminal cases. Now the scandal has grown with the prosecution of another Massachusetts state lab chemist for tampering with evidence and stealing drugs seized as evidence. Sonja Farak, who worked at the Massachusetts State Crime Laboratory in Amherst, was charged with tampering with four drug samples stored at the lab on 1 April. In two...

<p>Last month’s arrest of a chemist, who worked in a Massachusetts Department of Public Health state laboratory, for allegedly falsifying evidence used in criminal cases is prompting calls for major forensic science reform in the US.</p> <p>Over her nine year career at the William A Hinton State Lab in Jamaica Plain the defendant, Annie Dookhan, tested about 60,000 samples involved in roughly 34,000 criminal cases. More than 1140 defendants have been incarcerated as a result of Dookhan’s work and those cases are now in doubt, says Terrel Harris, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.</p>